Michael Roa Valdamjong
Michael Roa Valdamjong (ミハイル・ロア・バルダムヨォン, Mihairu Roa Barudamuyōn) is the main antagonist of Tsukihime. He is a vampire and a numberless Dead Apostle Ancestor ranked as "Extra" outside of the regular twenty-seven because they consider him to be a heretic who does not uphold the ideals of regular vampires. He is called The Serpent of Akasha (アカシャの蛇, Akasha no Hebi) and The Infinite Reincarnator (転生無限者, Tensei Mugensha), which refers to his ability to constantly reincarnate after entering Akasha, the root of everything within the universe, no matter how many times he dies. His seventeenth incarnation is known as Elesia (エレイシア, Ereishia), and his eighteenth incarnation, SHIKI Tohno (遠野 四季, Tōno Shiki), is his latest as of the time period of Tsukihime. Biography Roa was originally a priest of the Church who quickly rose to the top by utilizing all his father's inheritance. He created the "burial class", the base of today's Burial Agency, along with Narbareck. With nothing left of his resources, he decided to leave the Church, and gave the Agency to Nabareck. After betraying the Church to the Mage's Association, he was left uncredited, and Riesbyfe Stridberg was surprised to hear about his involvement with it. He wished to realize an immortality different from that of Dead Apostles, but, trying to overcome his limits as a mere human, he reluctantly became a vampire in order to continue his research. When considering a way to become a Dead Apostle, his heart was snatched the instant he put his eyes on Arcueid Brunestud, and without noticing it himself, his plan went out of control thereafter. He never noticed that he genuinely fell in love with her, but instead started hating her after it caused him to lose his innocence and turn away from his research. When she became weak to her vampiric impulse for the first time in the castle, he tricked her into drinking his blood by creeping up behind her, trying to seduce her with sweet words and asked "Are you in pain?" She sucked his blood right there, and he died immediately. After being brought back to life, he became distant from her, not once speaking after that point, and only met later to finish everything.1 He became a powerful Dead Apostle upon his revival. Taking the forces of the Dead Apostle Ancestors that had then been sealed by the Church, he quickly rose in power amongst the twenty-seven. He earned himself the scorn of the other Dead Apostles Ancestors as he built up power, and eventually Altrouge Brunestud was left in charge of punishing the upstart newcomer. He proved more powerful in battle, reflecting the magnitude of the power gained from Arcueid at her peak and his exceptional quality as a magi, and defeated her without killing her. The rest of the Ancestors decided to reject him and ignore his existence after that point, and, years later, he was eventually destroyed by Arcueid who had joined forces with the Church. Over the next seven hundred years, he reincarnated fifteen times, and he was endlessly killed by Arcueid each time. Roa's seventeenth incarnation, Elesia, later known as Ciel, was born in 1976 to a baker's family in a remote village in France one hundred years after his sixteenth incarnation died. The sixteenth was destroyed by Arcueid before he had a chance to find a family bloodline with both wealth and power. He could only fulfill the requirement that his next incarnation would have physical potential, so he was born into a normal family without any social standing. In exchange, her body instead had extremely high magical potential, which is the closest in power to his original body in all of his incarnations. He began manifesting on her sixteenth birthday, and greatly enjoyed the amount of power the body gave him. Even though he would have to take a long period of time to take over the town without status, he was fine with waiting until later to obtain social standing. He committed various atrocities to the citizens as he used his new powers to slowly take over the town. After the town was completely under his control, he was inevitably hunted down by Arcueid, who managed to find him after two days of searching. He was killed, and Elesia's body was taken by the Church. She eventually revived with her original personality without any of Roa's influence, while Roa moved on to his next incarnation. He managed to plan his eighteenth incarnation, and choose the Tohno bloodline with a proper amount of wealth and power. Choosing the Far East for his seventeenth revival was on a whim which was possibly just him wishing for a change of scenery compared to where his previous incarnations were born. SHIKI Tohno, different than the protagonist of Tsukihime, Shiki Tohno, is Roa's eighteenth incarnation. He is the true son of the Tohno family, who was close to his sister, Akiha, and good friends with his adopted brother from the Nanaya clan. The three would often play with together, and they especially enjoyed playing a game where they would mark territory inside the mansion by carving their names walls, floors, and pillars. He eventually fell to his Inversion Impulse, resulting in him attacking his sister, Akiha Tohno. She was protected by Shiki, who suffered from a nearly fatal wound and having part of his "life" stolen by SHIKI. As with the traditions of the Tohno household, SHIKI was to be killed by his father, Makihisa Tohno, but he managed to revive using Shiki's "life." He regained a measure of his sanity, so Makihisa was unsure about killing him. While he was officially declared deceased to the rest of the family and officially replaced by Shiki, he was kept locked in the Tohno Mansion's cellar. Makihisa planned to bring him back into the family after he healed, but he remained locked up for around eight years. After Makihisa's death, he was taken care of by Kohaku, who planned to use him in her revenge against the family. He is eventually released before the start of Tsukihime. The Legacy of Michael Roa Valdamjong *''Tsukihime (2000)'' *''Melty Blood: Actress Again (2008)'' **''Melty Blood: Actress Again: Current Code (2010)'' Personality It seems Roa was popular as a virtuous man when he was a priest up until his betrayal. He seems to have great dislike for the Church, commenting that the already ruined Church has degraded even further in eight hundred years, but also says the existence of a woman like Riesbyfe makes it not quite as bad. He had some form of a close relationship with Nabareck, as, while she did not want to leave the Church or live with Roa, she was willing to pass on the information to her child to ignore a newcomer Dead Apostle in one hundred years. He is an acquaintance with Nrvnqsr Chaos, and they are close enough to call each other friends. Nrvnqsr believes that he understands Roa more than the other Ancestors, having talked extensively about their own meanings of eternity and Roa having taught him the "Soil of Genesis" with the idea of having him use it to capture Arcueid. While they are both heretics by the standards of vampires, Nrvnqsr states that each case is isolated, and that doesn't mean that they understand each other on that point. Like the rest of the Ancestors, this causes him not accept Roa as one of them. When they meet again in Actress Again, Nrvnqsr remarks that the "name of the archangel has fallen indeed" after Roa calls him "pal." While he has become cruder than in the past, Nrvnqsr finds his incarnation as SHIKI is the worst. He compares his gradual assimilation with chaos with Roa's constantly diluting ego, and comments that it may be the last time they trade words. While Roa found perfecting the “Soil of Genesis” to be fun, and that the idea of working together on cooperative research is appealing, they decided to simply crush each other following their natural destructive urges. During comedic scenes of Melty Blood, characters berate him for attempting to act important whenever he act serious. He is considered part of the Back Alley Alliance along with Satsuki Yumizuka, Sion Eltnam Atlasia, Riesbyfe, and White Len. White Len mentions that he is even at the bottom of that group. Kohaku keeps calling him "Mr. Nero" and "Mr. Neroa" in order to infuriate him during his time in the limelight. He tries to assert that while others may not know him, that she should at least recognize him as SHIKI, but she comments that the SHIKI she knew didn't look like some pianist. Eternity Ever since he was born, he had no interest in anything in particular, feeling more mechanical than human. His first feelings were those of pity rather than anger or despair. He simply thought everything around him was pitiful, and he himself was the most pitiful of all. He saw life which breaks down, daily life which fades, and time which is forgotten, all without limit. Everyone falls, but they still continue to struggle desperately to continue existing. When they judge that it is not possible to continue existing, they continue to reproduce instead, but even that dies in the end. He found that there is no recompensation, not for those who die, as they had no hope even in the beginning, but rather the noble wish and yearning for eternity which everyone longs for yet can not achieve. The constant repetition of wishes is nearly impossible to measure, so he wished to replace the almost-comical cycle with one pure thing. Living for one reason, which could not be termed as a "conviction", he sought the first word that he happened to learn, "eternity." He believed the prospect of eternity is the only goal worthy of effort. He had no interest in that which breaks down, and wished to see and understand death so that he could take a bit of interest in it. While those seeking eternity often become Dead Apostles in pursuit of that goal, it was simply a means of furthering his own goal for Roa. He believes nothing in existence has yet to reach the level of immortality, something which would define eternity. When something has shape, it cannot help but perish. All living things internalize death the moment they are born. Something without death within them is probably something that never existed in the first place. Human vessels cannot resist wearing down mentally and physically with time, and they do not have the capability to last one thousand years. Even the body of a vampire does nothing to stop the aging of the mind, requires stealing from others to exist, and their supplemental parts have to be from the same species, humans in general, meaning that they are not versatile. He calls their process degeneration rather than evolution, and refers to them as a species that ages slower and dies harder rather than any sort of embodiment of eternity. That which cannot function independently in perpetuity cannot be called eternal, so depending on others to halt their aging makes it presumptuous to call them immortal. The only thing becoming a Dead Apostle allowed was the ability to realize his goal with time which his human body would not allow. While aging can be stopped, that is only halting it, and a stopped mind has no meaning. Creatures that can function independently in perpetuity in a state close to perfection exist, such as beings like jellyfish that can feed on themselves and multiply, turning old cells into nutrients to produce new cells. They have no such thing as a lifespan, but they can only be called perpetual because the have no intelligence. Eternity without having intelligence is no different than gaining eternity by death. Even with a body unable to age, as long as something exists, it cannot escape death. The only way to truly escape death is to die, creating a contradiction that cannot be solved. There cannot be anything in the world that cannot die. He instead concluded that preserving his existence after death is what would make him truly immortal. Becoming eternal by living as a human with immortality is impossible, as long years will destroy the body and wear away the flexibility of the mind. He had no interest in such a stained immortality, as persistently maintaining individuality makes eternity unattainable. Rather than seeking immortality as a single human, he sought to choose an infinity where he exists eternally. In order to preserve the purity of his essence, he devised his method of reincarnation to restart from birth, exist as himself, and then die once more. The cycle would preserve the purity of himself throughout the generations. He realized eternal reincarnation far better than anyone else, but it still requires new unborn children other than himself to continue. While he would lose his eternity with the extinction of the human race, he believes that "eternity exists only as long as there is an observer." If no humans existed, he would not be able to confirm himself, which would make continuing to live useless and bring his immortality to an end. While Nrvnqsr Chaos believes that this theory is far from a true thesis of eternity, Roa believes that if everything comes to perish, then it should perish. Once observers cease to exist, everything will become unchanging. His eternity is temporary until such a time occurs. As he cannot turn everything into nothingness, he wishes act as a observer and live until then. Upon seeing Arcueid for the first time, he instantly fell in love with her, having such a feeling for the first and only time in his entire life. Though it was only an instant, he lost his purity the moment his heart was stolen by her. She was someone not aware of own her self, who was only treated as a method of killing. He viewed her during her brief respite between killing her enemies and returning to sleep that she cannot wake from herself. As she gazed at the moon with distant eyes while not even knowing her own fate, he saw her as the embodiment of the eternity he seeks. He was so pure that he was unable to understand his own emotions, so he misconstrued the act of thinking about someone else so much it almost made him go crazy as his first feelings of hatred in his life. She changed him, and while she didn't change his fundamental goal of attaining eternity, she degraded it from seeking eternity for no reason, a pure, undefiled will, into a means to an end of eternally reaching out for her. While he understood this about himself, he couldn't do anything to change his heart. He regretted having lost his original purity because now, like all the other pitiful wretches, he wished to continue existing as himself as he was right then. Incarnations Roa as an individual has ceased to exist, and the part of his soul left over can only be called the conceptualization of Roa's desire for immortality. He considered one's ego as unnecessary, so he doesn't really care what he does as long as he can continue his thesis on immortality. That first image of Arcueid is the only remaining emotion in Roa's heart after eight hundred years and seventeen reincarnations. While his personality has long died out, it is an eternal memory burned into his soul that continues to exist without disappearing. This memory made him hate the True Ancestor that caused his purity to fall, her existence, and everything about her. The hatred guided him trick her, become a Dead Apostle, steal her power, and wait for her to come to him. It has caused him to reincarnate so many times, just so that he can wait for her to come pursue him every time. Shiki believes that he wouldn't have made such mistakes if he was simply told that he was feeling love. Once he starts to possess Shiki, he has no direct control. He only acts as a voice inside Shiki's head, but it often devolves into repeating nonsense as it urges him to act. When confronting Ciel, he repeats "Slice her apart" numerous times until Shiki uses his willpower to silence him. 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